Mimicry 283 
Mimicry,—Batesian or Pseudaposematic, Miillerian or 
Synaposematic. 
The existence of superficial resemblances between animals of 
various degrees of affinity must have been observed for hundreds 
of years. Among the early examples, the best known to me have 
been found in the manuscript note-books and collections of W. J. 
Burchell, the great traveller in Africa (1810—15) and Brazil (1825— 
30). The most interesting of his records on this subject are brought 
together in the following paragraphs. 
Conspicuous among well-defended insects are the dark steely or 
iridescent greenish blue fossorial wasps or sand-wasps, Spheax and 
the allied genera. Many Longicorn beetles mimic these in colour, 
slender shape of body and limbs, rapid movements, and the readiness 
with which they take to flight. On Dec. 21, 1812, Burchell captured 
one such beetle (Promeces viridis) at Kosi Fountain on the journey 
from the source of the Kuruman River to Klaarwater. It is correctly 
placed among the Longicorns in his catalogue, but opposite to its 
number is the comment “Sphex! totus purpureus.” 
In our own country the black-and-yellow colouring of many 
stinging insects, especially the ordinary wasps, affords perhaps the 
commonest model for mimicry. It is reproduced with more or less 
accuracy on moths, flies and beetles. Among the latter it is again a 
Longicorn which offers one of the best-known, although by no means 
one of the most perfect, examples. The appearance of the well- 
known “wasp-beetle” (Clytus arietis) in the living state is sufficiently 
suggestive to prevent the great majority of people from touching it. 
In Burchell’s Brazilian collection there is a nearly allied species 
(Neoclytus curvatus) which appears to be somewhat less wasp-like 
than the British beetle. The specimen bears the number “1188,” 
and the date March 27, 1827, when Burchell was collecting in the 
neighbourhood of San Paulo. Turning to the corresponding number 
in the Brazilian note-book we find this record: “It runs rapidly 
like an ichneumon or wasp, of which it has the appearance.” 
The formidable, well-defended ants are as freely mimicked by 
other insects as the sand-wasps, ordinary wasps and bees. Thus 
on February 17, 1901, Guy A. K. Marshall captured, near Salisbury, 
Mashonaland, three similar species of ants (Hymenoptera) with a bug 
(Hemiptera) and a Locustid (Orthoptera), the two latter mimicking 
the former. All the insects, seven in number, were caught on a single 
plant, a small bushy vetch'. 
This is an interesting recent example from South Africa, and 
large numbers of others might be added—the observations of many 
1 Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. 1902, p. 535, plate xrx. figs. 53—59. 
